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Friday, October 30, 2015

Are you hopping with The Twinery today? If you are you should have reached me from Jen Cuthbertson's blog. If you want to start from the beginning you can get all the details here at The Twinery Blog. There's lots of goodies up for grabs today including a prize on EVERY blog you visit on the hop! Today instead of sharing projects were showing you how we store our twine. You should find great ideas for storage no matter if you buy the sampler packs or the entire spools. So now you have your twine - how should you store it? What? You don't have twine? That's ok - we have a great deal for you today - enter code STASH25 for 25% off your entire order through 11-6.I confess - I'm a bargain hunter. If it's on sale, I'm there. I'm also always looking at what I get for the price. Purchasing entire spools of twine has always been my personal choice because lets face it - I'm getting 240 yards on a roll for $14.00. That works out to be around 6 cents a yard. And honestly I put twine on just about EVERYTHING!

Since I'm investing in the big spool of course I want to make sure I keep it clean and dust free so that it looks beautiful every time I use it. I'm not saving anything if my spool decides to meet some of my other crafty supplies like glue or ink by accident. I saw this coffee creamer idea in a magazine years ago and have been using it ever since.I purchase the glass coffee creamer jars at the local dollar store. Yes they still have them - I checked today. I love that I can see exactly what color is in which jar. My twine is safe from my inky fingers and I an dispense exactly as much as I like through the creamer hole in the top of the jar.

Another big plus? I know lots of us like to write down what products we used on our creations. As I use more twine the snug Twinery label telling me the name of the color is getting looser. You can see on the very first photo that the label on the Lilac twine is very loose. I've been using it, and the spool is getting smaller. With the creamer jar the label is staying in the jar - it's not falling off. I can also easily see when I'm starting to run low and it's time to reorder.

I keep the jars on a shelf above my work desk - they are arranged by color and don't take up much room.

They also brighten up my work space. I love being surrounded by all these pretty colors! I 'm always sure to find a match for any project.

It's time for the 12 Kits of Occasions. We're a day early this month so we can put proper attention to the Halloween festivities tomorrow. Not familiar with the 12 kits? We're a group of 12 friends who like to create cards! Every month we take turns putting together a kit for the group and on the last day of the month we all share what we came up with. It's always fun and interesting to see how our designs are different or similar. Our hostess this month is Joyce from Cards By The Sea. If you know Joyce - she's on lots of design teams - she rocks clean and simple. Here's the wonderful kit she provided for us this month. It was full of pretty papers, and stamped images and sentiments all travel related since our theme this month is Let's Go!I'll be honest... I had to do a double take.... no embellishments in this one.. so I had to decide.. go totally naked - straight out CAS like I expect Joyce will do.. or dig out a few embellishments of my own. Ok .. one guess as to what I did... lol! So if my kit looks a little different that is why. I hope that's not cheating! There was one advantage to this.. there is no secret ingredient you need to keep an eye out for. No tricks all treats this time. I got four cards made so here goes!

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Hi Sweet Friends! I hope you are having a great day! I did some running around with my daughter today - a trip to Costco to buy her some little things for her apartment. She's been experimenting with baking lately - I guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree. She needed a set of mixing bowls, measuring cups and baking pans. It feels good to do simple things like this with her. Of course I had to stop at Hobby Lobby while we were by the mall, and then a bit of lunch at Red Lobster. I'm addicted to Parrot Bay Coconut Shrimp!

Fusion Card Challenge has another winner design to inspire you this time. This one is called Purple and Poppies. It's Fusion so remember you can use the inspiration photo OR the sketch.. or if you're feeling trixie just FUSE them together!

I love purple and red together - two very regal colors. Of course I added a bit of gold - fit for a Queen right? . Instead of having my flourish go up like on the sketch, I decided to have mine pointing downward. It just seemed more pleasing to my eye.

To get that two tone color on the poppies I dipped them in orange ink and then rolled the edges in red. I stamped the dark centers with Versafine so they'd be crisp and dark.

The oval cut frame looked a little flat to me so I embossed it with a repeating pattern and then popped it up on adhesive foam to add a little texture and depth to the window.

I hope you will join us at Fusion Card Challenge! You have two weeks to play. Need a little more inspiration? Just hop on over to the blog and see the rest of the amazing cards from the design team!

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

One more card to get in today - another Halloween for Time Out Challenges! Isn't this a lovely tablescape? If you are hoping to play along you better get a move on. When I started writing this there was a little over 19 hours left to play! So many witches so little time. I'm expecting DH home any second now so typing as quick as I can LOL!

This cute little witch is from Serendipity Stamps. I colored her up with Copic markers and she looks fabulous in black or purple!

I used lots of Pretty Pink Posh dies on this one - the stitching makes these easy to mix and match together for a unified look! The borders are cut from the Borders 3 set and layered. The pattern paper didnt stand out enough so I cut a second layer from solid card stock to make it pop.

Wow.. Halloween is really creeping up fast isn't it? Thank goodness I have the goodies bought and sitting by the front door. We're sort of "odd ball" at our house. We give away little bags of chips instead of candy. We let the kids pick through the big assortment boxes for the kind they like, and usually the parents are happy for a bag too. A little something to balance out that sweet tooth! I'm playing a new challenge today - AAA Cards! This is "game" #50 Anything Goes Halloween . I love Halloween so you don't have to ask me twice LOL! I've seen some of my friends playing along and don't know what took me so long! I think Christmas and Halloween are the only two occasions that I actually mail as many cards as I make! Don't you love that scary inspiration picture?

I started with the Spooky Background die from Taylored Expressions. I slipped a few die cut circles behind the trees to make a glowing moon.

I stamped a sentiment from Waltzingmouse Stamps on a die cut tag and layered on lots of yummies... a sparkly scallop, a silver layered bat, and a BOO! die cut from Serendipity. I think the tag shape sort of looks like a head stone don't you?

Are you having a good week? I've been doing lots of baking - my second pumpkin pie this week, and hoping to make some pumpkin bread after I get a few essentials at the store. I'm usually stocked up but since I haven't been baking all winter some of my ingredients need replacement - I don't want to use old baking soda - that could be bad!I saw that my sweet friend Tracey McNeely is the guest designer at MUSE this week and YES! I have to play along. I love Tracey's clean floral design with just the right amount of sparkle from some clear sequins!

I got this PTI Morning Glory set a few months ago and hadn't inked it up yet. Gosh I was talking to myself trying to get all the pieces to line up and the right colors! SO much for a CAS card. I think I have it down for next time LOL!!! I didn't really like the sentiments in the set so I did a little switch up. I can always use a Thank You card - lots of helping hands in my life!

I stamped on Rustic Cream paper from PTI. The little flecks of fiber give it a very natural look. The clear sequins really add lots of sparkle and look like dew drops don't they?

If you get the time I hope you'll play along at Muse! I know Tracey and I will both be happy to see you there!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Wow it's been a while since I played along at the Card Concept. They're back from their Summer hiatus and now I am too! LOL! Have you played there yet? They present you with an inspiration photo - isn't this time a beauty? And.. you create in your style. They show a take on the challenge from each of their DT members who specialize in a certain "style" from CAS (clean and simple) to Shabby Chic. I thought I'd pull out all the stops for this one and go full on heavy embellies. I'm thinking this one is Shabby Chic.. you tell me.. I'm also thinking I could be Classy & Elegant (I see some sparkle) or even Freestyle Collage since I have some unrelated elements in my design like the wood sequins stapled sentiment, and stick pin.

I'm smitten with the photo this time and used lots of elements from the photo on my design.

I love Tim Holtz memo pins - when I'm not inserting a little sentiment in them I like to add a big gem to the center.

I inked up the edges of the pumpkins with distress ink to add a little dimension. The roses and pumpkins are straight from the photo. All the dies on this card are from Top Dog Dies.

I seem to always be adding a bit of twine to my projects too - it just seems to anchor everything to me so that the images don't appear to be floating in space.

This photo shows you the dimension from adding the pumpkins with adhesive foam tape. Yes.. this card will need to be hand delivered! Thinking my Mom will get this one.

Hi I'm Jeanne!

A Kept Life

When I left my full time career job my husband started calling me his "kept wife". The name of my blog is a play on that expression, because now I capture moments in photographs, and create in color in my "kept life". I hope you enjoy - thanks for stopping by!